Google’s Eric Schmidt latest to feel the heat.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: This week has seen Silicon Valley’s gender bias issue come starkly into the spotlight after both Google and Facebook were called out for their employees’ attitudes towards equality in the workplace.
At a South by Southwest panel on Monday, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and acclaimed Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson were wrapping up a panel that focused on diversity when an audience member chastised the two men for repeatedly interrupting their fellow panelist, the United States’ Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith, according to a report by Mashable.
Even more awkward was that the audience member turned out to be Judith Williams, head of Google’s unconscious bias program.
“Given that unconscious bias research tells us that women are interrupted a lot more than men, I’m wondering if you are aware that you have interrupted Megan many more times,” Williams asked the panel.
In another incident, a former Facebook employee is suing the social media giant for alleged sex discrimination and harassment, discrimination and harassment based on race or national origin, and wrongful discharge from the company, among other charges.
TechCrunch revealed plaintiff Chia Hong, who is Taiwanese, makes 11 separate legal claims in the suit, alleging that while at Facebook she suffered from discrimination and harassment based on her gender, race, and nationality. Furthermore, she alleges she was retaliated against after complaining about such treatment, and was ultimately unlawfully terminated from the company. She is also claiming damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The defendants in the suit are Facebook, a company staffer named Anil Wilson, and 50 unnamed Facebook employees collectively referred to as “defendant Doe.”
According to TechCrunch, the litigation states Wilson and Hong’s other coworkers regularly ignored or belittled her opinions at group meetings, asked her “why she did not just stay home and take care of her child instead of having a career,” and ordered her to organize parties and serve drinks to male colleagues.
The lawsuit also alleges that Hong was told that she was not integrated into her team at work “because she looks different and talks differently than other team members” and was consequently replaced “by a less qualified, less experienced Indian male.”
Google and Facebook’s gaffes have occurred during a time of heightened attention to the way women are treated in Silicon Valley and the tech world at large, spurred on by Reddit interim CEO Ellen Pao’s gender discrimination lawsuit against her former employer, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Pao, 45, is currently suing her former employer for $16 million in back pay and future wage losses. She alleges she was denied merited promotions because of her gender and that a colleague with whom she had a brief relationship harassed her for several years afterward.